Georg von Trapp

Georg Johannes Ritter von Trapp (4 April 1880-30 May 1947) was an Austro-Hungarian Navy lieutenant-commander during the Boxer Rebellion and World War I. Von Trapp was decorated for his service in the navy, and he lived a comfortable lifestyle in Austria until the Anschluss of 1938, which caused him and his family to flee to the United States.

Naval service
Georg Johannes Ritter von Trapp was born in Zara, Dalmatia, Austria-Hungary (now Zadar, Croatia) on 4 April 1880, the son of a naval officer who had been elevated to the nobility in 1876. Von Trapp followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Austro-Hungarian Navy when he was just fourteen years old, entering the naval academy at Fiume and graduating four years later. Von Trapp was able to see much of the world, buying seven bottles of water from the Jordan River which were later used to baptize his first seven children. Von Trapp married Agatha Whitehead, an English heiress who was the granddaughter of Robert Whitehead, the inventor of the torpedo, and they became quite wealthy, with Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria inviting Von Trapp to open his own torpedo factory after the British rejected the new weapon.

In 1900, Von Trapp fought in the Boxer Rebellion, and he was decorated for his performance; he passed the final officer's examination in 1902 and joined the navy's new submarine arm in 1908. From 1910 to 1913, he commanded the submarine U-6, and he took command of U-5 in 1915 during World War I. He conducted nine combat patrols, and he sunk eleven Allied cargo ships while commanding U-14. Sadly, he lost his brother Werner during the war, and he went on to name his second-oldest son after him in December 1915. In May 1918, he was promoted to Korvettenkapitan (Lieutenant-Commander) and was given command of the submarine base of Cattoro (Kotor, Montenegro) at the end of the war.

Interwar period
Georg von Trapp became a widower in 1922 when his wife died of scarlet fever, and she left behind two sons and five daughters. In 1926, he hired the Nonnberg Abbey postulant Maria Augusta Kutschera as a tutor for his children, and the 22-year-old Maria and the 47-year-old Georg fell in love, marrying in 1927. Much of the family's fortune was wiped out in the failure of an Austrian bank during the Great Depression, so his wife arranged for the family to sing at various events to make a living for themselves. In 1936, they began to perform paid concerts, and Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg invited the family to perform in Vienna after hearing them on the radio. Von Trapp was a proud Austrian, hanging the Austrian flag in his home and opposing German nationalism.

Move to America
After the Anschluss in 1938, Von Trapp was offered a commission in the Kriegsmarine navy of Nazi Germany, but his opposition to Nazism led to him declining the officer. Von Trapp knew that he could not decline the offer without the fear of arrest for himself and his family, and his family managed to escape from Austria after performing at the Salzburg Festival; Von Trapp himself performed an emotional rendition of the folk song "Edelweiss", encouraging the audience to join him in singing in a sign of Austrian defiance against the Nazis in attendance. The family took a train to Italy, of which the Italian-born Von Trapp was a citizen, sailing to the United States for their first tour and performing in Scandinavia. In September 1939, the family permanently moved to the USA, settling in Marion, Pennsylvania for a short time before moving to Stowe, Vermont, where they set up a farm in a mountainous area that reminded them of Austria. After World War II, Von Trapp founded a relief fund to help with repairing the devastated country of Austria, being contacted by US Army general Harry J. Collins. Von Trapp died of lung cancer in 1947 at the age of 67.